Economists behaving badly: publications in predatory journals

Abstract

The extent of publishing in predatory journals in economics is examined. A simple model of researcher behavior is presented to explore those factors motivating an academic to publish in predatory journals as defined by Beall (Criteria for determining predatory open access publishers, Unpublished document, 3rd edn, 2015. https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/). Beall’s lists are used to identify predatory journals included in the Research Papers in Economics archives. The affiliations of authors publishing in these outlets indicate that the geographic dispersion of authorship is widespread. A very small subset of authors is registered on RePEc. A surprising number of authors who are in the RePEc top 5% also published in predatory journals in 2015.

Keywords

Predatory journals Research Papers in Economics Open access

JEL Classification

Notes

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the anonymous referee for thoughtful and useful comments. For their helpful remarks and suggestions we thank the participants in the Crime and Microeconomic Topics session at the Western Economics Association meetings in Portland, Oregon, June 29 to July 3, 2016. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Appendix 1: data collection

A list of journals showing the RePEc aggregate ranking for the last 10 years was downloaded on December 13, 2015. The list contained 1642 journals and the identities of each journal’s publisher. The RePEc list was reviewed to find journals or publishers appearing on Beall’s lists of predatory publishers or journals. Thirty-nine journals from eighteen different publishers on the RePEc list are considered predatory in Beall’s classification. The journals are listed in Table 3.

Table 3

Predatory journals indexed on RePEc-December 13, 2015

Journal

RePEc Ranka

In DOAJ?b

Applied Economics and Finance

1481

Noc

Asian Economic and Financial Review

250

No

Business and Economic Research

1457

No

Economy & Business Journal

1517

No

International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance, and Mgt. Sciences

383

No

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

296

Noc

International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development

1473

No

International Journal of Asian Social Science

301

No

International Journal of Business Administration

1397

Noc

International Journal of Economics and Empirical Research

854

No

International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues

464

Yes

International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy

517

Yes

International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies

1236

No

International Journal of Financial Research

1192

Noc

International Journal of Social Science Research

1186

No

International Journal of Social Science Studies

1431

Noc

International Review of Management and Marketing

1125

Yes

Journal of Asian Business Strategy

1290

No

Journal of Asian Scientific Research

910

No

Journal of Economic and Financial Studies

1417

Yes

Journal of Management and Strategy

1430

Noc

Journal of Reviews on Global Economics

1066

No

Journal of Social Science Studies

1607

No

Research in World Economy

1146

Noc

Review of Business and Finance Studies

1559

No

Review of Economics & Finance

500

Yes

The International Journal of Business and Finance Research

961

No

The following journals were indexed in RePEc but had no 2015 publications

Accounting and Taxation

1344

No

Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development

1080

Yes

Asian Journal of Empirical Research

689

No

Indexed in RePEc but without 2015 publications, continued

Business Education and Accreditation

1573

No

E3 Journal of Business Mgt. and Economics

993

No

Far East Journal of Psychology and Business

641

Nod

Global Journal of Business Research

1093

No

International Journal of Agricultural Mgt. and Development

1275

Yes

International Journal of Management and Sustainability

1222

No

International Journal of Mgt. and Marketing Research

1463

No

Journal of Economics and Political Economy

1315

Yes

Journal of Knowledge Management, Economics and Information Technology

793

Yes

aJournal aggregate ranking for the last 10 years in Research Papers in Economics on December 13, 2015

bThe Directory of Open Access Journals was consulted on January 9, 2017

cRemoved from DOAJ before January 9, 2017 for “suspected editorial misconduct by publisher.” (DOAJ)

dRemoved from DOAJ before January 9, 2017 because “web site does not work.” (DOAJ)

In response to comments regarding the alleged subjectivity of Beall’s lists, we searched in the DOAJ, OASPA, and Cabell’s directory for those journals/publishers indexed in RePEc and appearing on Beall’s lists. None of the predatory journals are in Cabell’s, and none of the publishers are members of the OASPA. Nine of the thirty-nine journals in our data set have passed muster by DOAJ acceptance criteria and remain in the directory. As noted in the main body of the paper, eight other predatory journals in our data set were originally in the DOAJ but were removed for failing to adhere to DOAJ standards.

After identification of the predatory journals, authors and titles of papers published in each journal in 2015 and appearing on RePEc were pasted into an Excel file on December 27, 2015. Over the next 2 months, each available 2015 issue of each predatory journal was reviewed to identify the affiliations of authors and, in cases of authors registered on RePEc, other characteristics of their publication records. By the time some journals were reviewed, additional issues of the journal had appeared on RePEc. In such instances the new information was not incorporated into the data set. Thus the data file generally does not include all papers published in 2015 by each journal, and journals/publishers that promptly submit issues to RePEc will be overrepresented in the data set compared to those that delay their submissions.

Due to variations in lags between publication of an issue and its appearance on RePEc, the data set excludes some predatory journals listed on RePEc. Twelve journals had no 2015 issues on RePEc when the data were compiled, so the final data set includes twenty-seven predatory journals with publications in 2015. Of these twenty-seven journals, the number of 2015 papers from each journal ranges from one to two hundred and thirty-six for a total of 1284 published papers in predatory journals.

We began this study with an implicit assumption that a journal listed in Research Papers in Economics is an economics journal. However, the titles of many articles and journals suggest that not all authors are economists. One of the characteristics used by Jeffrey Beall to identify a predatory publisher is that the journal is “excessively broad … to attract more articles,” (Beall 2015). Thus published papers outside the usual scope of economics do appear in the data set.

Two characteristics of each author were identified from the initial examination of papers: the country in which the author’s affiliated institution is located, and whether the author is registered on RePEc. If registered, the number of each author’s publications appearing on RePEc is recorded. There are 2774 authors in the data set. Note that there are individual authors with more than one paper in the data set for predatory journals, so the total number of authors exceeds the number of individuals. Variations in how an author’s name might appear on a paper led us to forgo any attempt to determine the number of different authors in the overall data set. However, we also examine more closely the much smaller subset of RePEc registered authors, and readdress this issue. This portion of the data collection process was completed on February 28, 2016.

Data collection for the subset of registered authors began on July 9 and ended on July 25, 2016. Each author’s RePEc publications were reviewed to collect the additional information on publications. Counts were made of the number of publications in predatory journals for each individual, and of total journal publications.